Just label it!

A staggering majority of Americans, 93% in fact, want to know when we're eating genetically engineered food. With up to 80% of the non-organic products on our shelves containing GE ingredients, and little-to-no long-term studies on their effects, we are concerned.

Meanwhile much of the rest of the world — including Japan, Australia, the European Union and China — already requires genetically engineered foods to be clearly labeled, but in the U.S., biotech companies like Monsanto enjoy unfettered and unlabeled access to the market. The only sure way to know that a food product contains no GE components is to look for the organic seal.

One wonders what they're hiding, although the strategy of staving off labeling requirements is clear enough. As Patty Lovera — assistant director of Food & Water Watch — told the Atlantic Monthly, "The agenda of the biotech industry is that if consumers don't know about it, they will eat it."

This week PAN joins with 300+ organizations in mounting the Just Label It campaign, calling on FDA to mandate labeling and transparency around GE foods.

Unkept promises = low trust

For too long, biotech corporations have exerted undue influence on our food system while making promises on which they fail to deliver. After 14 years of commercialization, and millions of dollars in publicly funded research, the agricultural biotech industry has yet to deliver on the drought-resistant, high-yield products promised. Their seeds require more pesticide use, not less.